Automotive

Recent article in evo: https://www.evo.co.uk/lotus/emira/207957/can-lotus-survive-its-latest-crisis seems to imply that the days of Lotus as a sports car manufacturer and Hethel as a production plant might be numbered. While this would be a sad day emotio...  

Dream car from my youth 🤞🏻

Rebuilding a Lotus Esprit V8 engine typically costs around twelve thousand five hundred to thirty thousand dollars, depending on the shop, parts, and extent of the rebuild. Costs can climb if you need rare parts or extensive repairs like fixing a shattere... 

....but couldn't negotiate the road bumps on my street.alas

An excellent product that was too lightweight for Porsche and Ferrari. On the other hand, those clamshells were surely a bit pricey. Ah well, they say the good die young. Guess we still have Miata.

Geely did pump in money but seemingly it did not fix the issues adequately 😊🤷🏻‍♂️

The Chinese part of electric cars and SUVs seems unaffected for now. While the volume predictions of how well those would sell were sorely missed they still sell in drastically higher numbers than the sports cars did in the end. So let’s see 🤷🏻‍♂️ ... 

Even a minister from the British government is said to be having a meeting with Geely who have said they have no intention of closing the factory. So hopefully these rumours are false and the factory will not be closing down, but who knows I suppose anyth... 

But who knows…

Lotus face difficult times and are seriously weighing the closure of the factory it has occupied since 1966, moving all future production abroad and potentially to the United States. Lotus’s quarterly report showed customer deliveries had decreased by 42 ... 

However, Lotus has issued clear statements denying these claims. They have affirmed that: The UK is the "heart of the Lotus brand" and home to their sports car manufacturing, global design center, motorsport operations, and Lotus Engineering. Lotus Cars i... 

But the jury is still out on this one.

I guess not all would be closed, since the third party engineering consultancy is likely to survive in some form 👍🏻🤞🏻

...this sums up the situation pretty well IMHO.

Not sure what portion are production and what engineering (that gets spread over a larger volume) but the issue is clearly there 🤷🏻‍♂️

Sadly with the Emira it was over promise and under deliver. The car might have had the ingredients but the service and after sales did not fully live up to it and between announcement and sales the price also climbed North by quite a bit 🤷🏻‍♂️ ... 

Lotus Engineering is a consulting arm that helps other brands fine tune their cars. I heard that this firm makes more money than Lotus does selling cars. I don't know if this is still the case. Lotus, being mostly owned by Geely, a Chinese car firm with f... 

But outside of the UK the resale values currently are still very high unfortunately 🤷🏻‍♂️

Even I could never convince myself to buy an Esprit Turbo or V8. I see Lotus as unreliable (generally), little dealer support from the few dealers that exist in the US, very few clubs or aftermarket support, very high prices for parts, more or less dedica...  

The SUVs are a sign of the time and I guess they will in this case appeal less to the dyed in the wool fans of the brand than in previous applications of other brands, since the values are even less compatible. But the trend won’t stop. You will soon see ... 

…where very thin and on the floor of the car. Everything else was just as spartan. It could have been a race car but it made me think, inside, of a go kart. And it didn’t look like a race car. How could anyone enjoy driving that car around? I remember the... 

Often the problems go deeper and the companies get sold when the writing is on the wall already. From what you describe the Lotus you saw on the street is definitely a pre-Geely era model. But as much as there were few takers, it’s still unfortunate if th... 

What you describe is exactly what made Lotus great, originally it was never meant to be a luxury car it was simply a drivers car and a go kart that was road legal. No bells and whistles or any luxury just a pure adrenaline fuelled drivers car. Marc

Where a certain level of comfort is quite welcome 😉🤷🏻‍♂️

Compare to an early Miata for size: Knee-high Door handle high ...  

Thanks for the educational shots - much appreciated 😊👍🏻🙏🏻

Elise (2000's) Elan (19 Seventies) ...  

Probably still weights more 😊🤷🏻‍♂️

Quote from the article about sums it up for me. In the early days I was told Lotus was built for “men under 5 foot 10 inches with a size 8 shoe.” (Colin Chapman) No one larger could fit or drive it